Two years after 7 October: where is Israel headed?
On 7 October 2023, Hamas carried out a terrorist attack in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 hostages to the Gaza Strip. Since then Israel has been waging war against Hamas in the densely populated Palestinian territory. On the anniversary of the massacre, the media reflect on the situation in the Middle East.
Fear preventing a new start
Israeli writer Tamar Weiss-Gabbay describes a national trauma in La Stampa:
“Many people today say that we are still in October 2023. ... They say this because - although the threat has disappeared - the fear remains, and because everything that has happened in the two years since then has deepened the abyss and has not yet brought us to 'the day after': the day when we will pick ourselves up, climb out of the abyss, look around and try to repair the destruction - both the destruction that was inflicted on us and the destruction that we ourselves caused. I believe one of the reasons we are still here at the bottom of the abyss, and why we allow our leaders to still be there, is because our hearts are still frozen with fear.”
A fundamentally changed map
Israel's response to the massacre has radically changed the balance of power in the Middle East, writes news site Liberal:
“The unprecedented acts committed by the terrorists on that day and the cheering of the Palestinians in Gaza, where dead bodies and hostages were taken, were intended to change the map of the region. That was the goal of the Hamas leadership. But in the end, the Israelis changed the map of the entire region. Hezbollah was crushed in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria fell, Iran suffered a major defeat at all levels, and Hamas has witnessed deaths both in its leadership and among its 'soldiers'.”
Antisemitism now socially acceptable
Hamas may have been defeated militarily, but ideologically it is stronger than ever, Club Z concludes:
“It is now receiving unexpected support from the West. Its ideology has spread surprisingly, and its information war is extremely successful. Two years after the bloody massacre we've even reached the point where the whole world is calling for mass protests to condemn not Hamas, but Israel. Antisemitism is no longer a reason to be ashamed. The consequences of 7 October are yet to unfold in Europe. For its part, Israel faces a painful question: can it continue to exist as a democracy while at the same time having to be a fortress for all Jews in the world?”
Fatal change of image
Latvijas Avīze examines the strong support for the Palestinians, especially among young people in Western countries:
“This is a question of generational change, because older people remember Israel as a brave, young state that was not afraid to stand up to far more powerful Arab forces. They also remember the Palestinian terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s, including the massacre during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. For today's youth, all this belongs to the distant past; they see Israel as an aggressor occupying Palestinian land and murdering Palestinian women and children.”
Peaceful coexistence unthinkable right now
Trump's peace plan offers little chance of overcoming the consequences of 7 October, Der Standard comments:
“If the last 20 or so living hostages are actually released, one of the many wounds in this tragedy could be healed. ... However, many other rifts between Israelis and Palestinians remain open. ... The massacre of 7 October has further undermined the belief in Israel that coexistence with Palestinians could ever be possible one day. And two years of war in Gaza, accompanied by growing brutality on the part of radical Israeli settlers against villages in the West Bank, have also killed the Palestinians' desire for peace. ... In the eyes of almost all observers, the two-state solution is becoming an increasingly remote possibility.”